Turns Out Stoners and Drug Dealers Make Great Test Pilots For Drones

If someone high as f#*@ can safely operate a quadcopter, so can you

You can baby-proof your house, you can bear-proof your campground, and you can idiot-proof your office workflow. But can you stoner-proof your drone? That’s what the San Francisco inventors at Vantage Robotics set out to achieve. The unorthodox R&D landed them first prize at Richard Branson’s Extreme Tech Challenge, which means we’ll all be able to buy stoner-proof drones by March 1.

Vantage Robotics founder Tobin Fisher told Inverse that he conceptualized the idea of a drone with caged propeller blades because he kept cutting himself on the blades of other drones during launch. So he set out to make a drone durable enough to withstand the abuse of a truly aloof user, which is why he took the creation to San Francisco’s stoner central: Haight Street at Golden Gate Park.

Amid intellectual discussions about cross-joint rolling and bong resin cleaning, the stoners tested the drones, gave Fisher the feedback, and tested them again. And again, and again, until Fisher had a product that wouldn’t injure an impaired user any more than the sharp edges of a Doritos bag. Fisher told Inverse the stoners were actually quite receptive, and in fact followed up with him on how he was doing with planned design improvements. Vantage Robotics claims the drone can be dropped from 10 feet without sustaining serious damage, which might come in handy when the food truck pulls up and users forget they’re piloting a $895 quadcopter.

Advertising helps us deliver great content at no charge to you

To access please enter your email or disable your ad blocker

Are you sure you want to log out?

If you are the only person using this device,
there’s no need to log out. Just exit this page
and you won’t have to sign in again. But if
you’re on a public or shared computer, log out
to keep your account secure.